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Union Deal Shot Down; Malloy Pledges To Cut Close To 7,500 State Workers - (www.courant.com) Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Friday that he was moving "full steam ahead'' with plans to lay off 7,500 state employees, as leaders of the AFSCME union announced that their members had officially rejected a savings and concession deal that would have given them layoff protection for four years. The administration has ruled out a renegotiation with the unions because the multi-faceted agreement took months of intense negotiations and compromises to complete. Malloy said he and his budget team intend to release layoff notices "as soon as possible'' to balance the budget. "I have a big job to do, and we're going to do it,'' Malloy told reporters Friday. "Listen, I don't want to be laying off 7,500 people or more. I think it's bad for the economy. I think it's bad public policy.'' It would have been unnecessary had the rank-and-file state employees ratified the estimated $1.6 billion savings agreement. The deal's failure became official Friday when the state government's largest union, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, rejected the deal with about 55 percent of the members voting against it.
JPMorgan Hit With $19 Billion Damages Claim by Madoff Trustee - (www.bloomberg.com) JPMorgan Chase & Co. should pay a minimum of $19 billion in damages for its role in Bernard Madoff’s fraud, Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating the con man’s firm, said in a revised lawsuit. The sum represents Picard’s latest estimate of principal lost by all Madoff investors by the time the Ponzi scheme collapsed in December 2008, according to the complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Manhattan. JPMorgan, Madoff’s primary banker, could have stopped the fraud if it had passed on its suspicions to regulators, he said in his suit. Picard previously sought $5.4 billion in damages, plus $1 billion in transfers and fees from the second-biggest U.S. bank. JPMorgan “was an active enabler of the Madoff Ponzi scheme,” Picard’s lawyer, David Sheehan, said in a statement. JPMorgan “not only should have known that a fraud was being perpetrated, they did know,” he said.
Spain’s Building Spree Leaves Some Airports and Roads Begging to Be Used - (www.nytimes.com) In March, local officials inaugurated a new airport in Castellón, a small city on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. They are still waiting for the first scheduled flight. To justify the grand opening, Carlos Fabra, the head of Castellón’s provincial government, argued that it was a unique opportunity to turn an airport into a tourist attraction, giving visitors full access to the runway and other areas normally off-limits. This Sunday, it will be used as the starting point for part of Spain’s national cycling championships, featuring the three-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador. Castellón Airport, built at a cost of 150 million euros ($213 million), is not the only white elephant that now dots Spain’s infrastructure landscape. Spain’s first privately held airport — in Ciudad Real in central Spain — was forced to enter bankruptcy proceedings a year ago because of a similar lack of traffic.
Merkel Jostles With Banks on Greek Rollover - (www.bloomberg.com) Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government jostled with Germany’s biggest banks and insurers over aiding Greece, as the Finance Ministry rejected industry calls for incentives to encourage them to participate. Banks and insurers including Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) and Allianz SE (ALV) signaled a willingness to roll over maturing Greek debt if governments offer incentives such as guarantees, five people with knowledge of the talks said yesterday. The Finance Ministry sees guarantees as a non-starter because they would undermine the aim of relieving the burden on taxpayers, a government official said. All spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are ongoing and in private. The clash underscores Merkel’s difficulty in balancing voter interests with those of financial companies before a self- imposed July 3 deadline. They may be rendered irrelevant unless Prime MinisterGeorge Papandreou pushes through a package of budget cuts next week, the first hurdle to avert default.
New lawsuit filed against Wisconsin union law - (news.yahoo.com/s/ap) Wisconsin state employees will start paying more for their health care and pension benefits in late August, state officials said Wednesday as a coalition of unions filed a new lawsuit against the GOP-supported plan that strips away collective bargaining rights from most public workers. The law also requires workers to pay 12 percent of their health insurance costs and 5.8 percent of their pension costs, which amount to an 8 percent pay cut on average. But the legal battle was not yet over. A coalition of unions filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday arguing that the law violated the U.S. Constitution by taking away union rights to bargain, organize and associate and illegally discriminates among classes of public employees. The lawsuit seeks to block portions of the law taking away collective bargaining rights, but allows the higher pension and health care contributions that the unions agreed to take to move forward.
OTHER STORIES:
Greek ministers appeal to MPs to back austerity plan - (www.reuters.com)
Five economic lessons from Sweden, the rock star of the recovery - (www.washingtonpost.com)
Lawmakers harden positions on taxes, spending - (www.reuters.com)
Obama says committed to working to cut debt - (www.reuters.com)
Bernanke Public Approval Declines to Lowest With Too-Slow Economy in Poll - (www.bloomberg.com)
Banks Face Up to 2.5-Point Buffer in Basel - (www.bloomberg.com)
Google’s dominance draws new scrutiny from regulators - (www.washingtonpost.com)
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